Market Day

Ben is sixteen and lives with his grandpa Joe in Melbourne. Every Saturday Grandpa Joe goes to the Queen Victoria Market, but last Saturday his leg hurt. So he wrote a shopping list for Ben and gave him forty dollars. "Buy everything on the list," he said. "I'll make lunch."

Ben went to the market by tram. It was busy and noisy, with hundreds of stalls: fruit, vegetables, fish, cheese, bread. Ben took out the list and read it. He read it again. Grandpa Joe's handwriting was terrible.

Was that "beans" or "bananas"? "Lamb" or "lemons"? "Rice" or "rolls"? Ben thought for a long time. Then he made a decision: he bought bananas, lemons and bread rolls. He also bought a big fish, because the last word on the list looked like "fish". Or "fresh".

He brought everything home in two heavy bags. Grandpa Joe looked inside and laughed. "Where are the beans? Where is the lamb? I wanted to make a stew!" "Grandpa, your list was impossible," Ben said. "I thought it said bananas."

Grandpa Joe looked at the bananas, the lemons, the rolls and the fish. He thought for a minute. "Okay," he said. "New plan." He cooked the fish with lemon and put it in the rolls. For dessert, he made banana pancakes.

It was a great lunch, maybe the best lunch of the month. "Next Saturday," Grandpa Joe said, "I'll write the list on the computer." "No," said Ben. "Write it by hand. I like surprises."